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Ken Mattingly

Ken Mattingly

Thomas Kenneth (Ken) Mattingly II (born March 17, 1936) is an American astronaut who flew on the Apollo 16, STS-4, and STS-51-C missions. He was a student at the Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School when NASA selected him as an astronaut in April 1966. His first flight assignment was Command Module pilot on the Apollo 13 mission, but he was removed from the mission three days before the scheduled launch because he was exposed to German measles, which he, however, never got. He thereby missed the dramatic in-flight explosion and ultimately safe return of the crew. However, he was involved in helping the crew figure out how to conserve as much power as possible for re-entry. He finally flew as Command Module pilot on Apollo 16. Commander John Young, Lunar Module pilot Charles Duke, and Mattingly were launched on April 16, 1972. While Young and Duke explored the lunar surface for three days, Mattingly used instruments mounted in the service module from an altitude of 100 km to photographically and geochemically map a band of the lunar surface around the equator. Following his return to earth, Mattingly served in astronaut managerial positions in the Space Shuttle development program. He was named to command the fourth and final test flight of the shuttle Columbia. On June 27, 1982, he and pilot Henry Hartsfield were launched on a seven-day mission during which they thoroughly tested the shuttle systems and operated the spaceplane's first military payload. Mattingly's final entry into space came on January 24, 1985, as commander of Discovery on the 15th shuttle flight. During three days in orbit, he and a crew of four deployed a military satellite from the cargo bay. Thereafter he retired from NASA and the Navy (with the rank of Rear Admiral), and entered the aerospace business. He worked as a Director in Grumman's Space Station Support Division. He then headed the Atlas booster program for General Dynamics in San Diego, California. At Lockheed Martin he was Vice President in charge of the X-33 development program. In the movie Apollo 13, which is about the actual failed lunar mission which Ken Mattingly was supposed to have been on, he is played by Gary Sinise. There is little physical resemblance between Mattingly and Sinise, but interestingly, they have the same birthday. A native of Chicago, Illinois, Mattingly graduated with a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering in 1958 from Auburn University where he also served as Student Government Association president.

Space flight experience

Apollo 16 (April 16-27, 1972) was the fifth manned lunar landing mission. The crew included John W. Young (spacecraft commander), Ken Mattingly (command module pilot), and Charles M. Duke, Jr. (lunar module pilot). The mission assigned to Apollo 16 was to collect samples from the lunar highlands at a location near the crater Descartes. While in lunar orbit the scientific instruments aboard the command and service module "Casper" extended the photographic and geochemical mapping of a belt around the lunar equator. Twenty-six separate scientific experiments were conducted both in lunar orbit and during cislunar coast. Major emphasis was placed on using man as an orbital observer capitalizing on the human eye's unique capabilities and man's inherent curiosity. Although the mission of Apollo 16 was terminated one day early, due to concern over several spacecraft malfunctions, all major objectives were accomplished through the ceaseless efforts of the mission support team and were made possible by the most rigorous preflight planning yet associated with an Apollo mission. STS-4, the fourth and final orbital test flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia, launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on June 27,1982. Mattingly was the spacecraft commander and Henry W. Hartsfield, Jr., was the pilot. This 7-day mission was designed to: further verify ascent and entry phases of shuttle missions; perform continued studies of the effects of long-term thermal extremes on the Orbiter subsystems; and conduct a survey of Orbiter-induced contamination on the Orbiter payload bay. Additionally, the crew operated several scientific experiments located in the Orbiter's cabin and in the payload bay. These experiments included the Continuous Flow Electrophoresis System experiment designed to investigate the separation of biological materials in a fluid according to their surface electrical charge. This experiment was a pathfinder for the first commercial venture to capitalize on the unique characteristics of space. The crew is also credited with effecting an in-flight repair which enabled them to activate the first operational "Getaway Special" (composed of nine experiments that ranged from algae and duckweed growth in space to fruit fly and brine shrimp genetic studies). STS-4 completed 112 orbits of the Earth before landing on a concrete runway at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on July 4, 1982. STS-51-C, the first Space Shuttle Department of Defense mission, launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida on January 24, 1985. The crew included Ken Mattingly (spacecraft commander), Loren Shriver (pilot), Jim Buchli and Ellison Onizuka (mission specialists), and Gary Payton (DOD payload specialist). STS-51C performed its DOD mission which included deployment of a modified Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) vehicle from the Space Shuttle Discovery. Landing occurred on January 27, 1985.

External link


- [http://www.astronautix.com/astros/matingly.htm Ken Mattingly entry in Encyclopedia Astronautica] Mattingly, Ken Mattingly, Ken Mattingly, Ken Mattingly, Ken

1936

1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar).

Events

January-March

leap year starting on Wednesday
- January 7-10 - Second Italo-Abyssinian War: In the Battle of Ganale Doria, General Graziani attacks troops under Ras Desta Damtew guarding southern Ethiopia; after over three days of slaughter, the Ethiopians break and flee.
- January 15 - The first building to be completely covered in glass is completed in Toledo, Ohio, for the Owens-Illinois Glass Company.
- January 16 - Serial killer Albert Fish executed in Sing Sing
- January 20 - Death of George V of the United Kingdom. His son Edward VIII succeedes him as King of the United Kingdom, King of Ireland and Emperor of India.
- January 24 - Albert Sarraut's government begins in France.
- January 28 - Ismail Kadare, Albanian writer.
- January 31 - The Green Hornet radio show debuts.
- February 4 - Radium E. becomes the first radioactive element to be made synthetically.
- February 6 - The 1936 Winter Olympic Games opens in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
- February 10-15 - Second Italo-Abyssinian War: Ethiopian units under Ras Mulugeta counterattack southwest of Chalacot in the Battle of Amba Aradam, but are repulsed with heavy losses.
- From February 14, 1936, to March 1, 1945, AG Weser launched a total of 162 U-boats.
- February 19 - Manuel Azaña's government begins in Spain
- February 26 - 1400 Japanese soldiers invade government offices in Tokyo. They demand arrest of general Kazushige Ugaki and that general Sadao Araki made head of the Kwantung Army and death of the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, the minister of Finance and Inspector General of Military Education
- February 29 - Emperor Hirohito orders Japanese army to arrest 123 conspirators in Tokyo government offices - 19 of them are executed in July.
- March 7 - A small contingent of German troops, increased considerably in number in the following days, marched into the Rhineland demilitarized zone bordering France.
- March 31 - Second Italo-Abyssinian War: Emperor Haile Selassie personally leads an Ethiopian counter-attack in the Battle of Maychew. A crushing Ethiopian defeat, this is the last major battle of the war.

May-June

Battle of Maychew
- May 2 - Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia leaves the capital city of Addis Ababa for Djibouti, whence he travels to Europe to personally address the League of Nations.
- May 5 - Italians occupy Addis Ababa
- May 8 - Jockey Ralph Neves temporarily dies during a race in Bay Meadows Racecourse in California but dashes back from the morgue to the racetrack
- May 9 - Italy officially annexes Ethiopia.
- May 12 - The Santa Fe railroad in the United States inaugurates the all-Pullman Super Chief passenger train between Chicago, Illinois and Los Angeles, California.
- May 18 - Sada Abe, a Japanese former prostitute, causes the death of her lover Kichizo Ishida from asphyxia while having sexual intercourse. She performs penis removal on the corpse. She wanders the streets of Tokyo for three days with the severed penis placed in her kimono.
- May 21 - The Japanese Police apprehends Sada Abe for manslaughter. She is sentenced to six years in prison but she gains fame from the incident. She would later become an actress.
- May 27 - The first flight by the Irish airline Aer Lingus takes place.
- May 27 - British luxury liner The Queen Mary leaves Southampton on her maiden voyage over the Atlantic
- May 28 - Alan Turing submits "On Computable Numbers" for publication.
- June 3 - Haile Selassie arrives to London in exile.
- June 4 - Léon Blum becomes Prime Minister of France.
- June 11 - Opening of the London International Surrealist Exhibition at the New Burlington Galleries.
- June 15 - Army laboratory explodes in Estonia - 50 dead.

July-September

Estonia
- July - A major heat wave strikes the Midwestern United States, hundreds of high temperature records are set
- July 4 - Last day of the London International Surrealist Exhibition at the New Burlington Galleries
- July 11 - Triborough Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic
- July 13 - Murder of Spanish monarchist Jose Calvo Sotelo
- July 13 to 14 - Peak of July 1936 heat wave. The states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana all set new state records for high temperature.
- July 16 – George McMahon tries to shoot Edward VIII at the Colour ceremony. Later he tries to claim he was working for MI5
- July 17 - Spanish Civil War: Francisco Franco and other generals attempt a coup d'état, starting a conservative rebellion against the recently-elected leftist Popular Front government of Spain
- July 17 - Franco's forces invade Canary Islands
- July 18 - Troops of Francisco Franco land on Morocco and Barcelona - Spanish Civil War begins
- July 19 - Spain - the main trade union, the anarchist CNT calls for a revolution to defeat the military coup and institute libertarian communism.
- July - British Police end routine armed patrols in London
- August 1 - The 1936 Summer Olympics open in Berlin, Germany.
- August 4 - Ioannis Metaxas bans political parties in Greece
- August 5 - Military coup in Greece - Ioannis Metaxas takes power
- August 14 - Rainey Bethea is hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky in the last public execution in the United States
- August 25 - Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev were shot by a firing squad
- September 6 - The last surviving thylacine, Benjamin, dies alone in his cage in the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania.
- September 14 - Landslide in northern Norway - 74 dead

October

Norway
- October 1 - Francisco Franco elected Jefe del Estado (Head of State) in Spain.
- October 5 - In Jarrow, England, 200 unemployed shipyard workers begin a march to London to petition the government to create more jobs. On October 31, 197 of them arrive on the Houses of Parliament
- October 7 - Basque representatives in Guernica declare the Basque Republic of Euzkadi
- October 9 - Generators at Boulder Dam (later renamed to Hoover Dam) begins to transmit electricity from the Colorado River 266 miles to Los Angeles, California.
- October 13 - The Jarrow March sets off for London.
- October 13 - Regular ferry traffic begins between Dover and Calais
- October 23 - Legión Cóndor joins the Falangists
- October 25 - Rome-Berlin axis is formed between Italy and Germany.
- October 28 - US President Franklin Roosevelt rededicates the Statue of Liberty on its 50th anniversary.
- October 31 - The Boy Scouts of the Philippines was formed.

November-December

Boy Scouts of the Philippines]
- November 3 - U.S. presidential election, 1936: Franklin D. Roosevelt is reelected to a second term in a landslide victory over Alf Landon.
- November 12 - In California, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opens to traffic.
- November 16 - Edward VIII of the United Kingdom announces his intention to marry Wallis Simpson
- November 20 - In UK, new Matrimonial Causes Act permits divorce on the grounds of cruelty, drunkenness, willful desertion, incurable insanity, and being a prisoner on a death sentence
- November 23 - The first edition of Life is published.
- November 25 - In Berlin, Nazi-Germany and Japan sign the Anti-Comintern Pact, thus agreeing to consult on what measures to take "to safeguard their common interests" in case of an unprovoked attack by the Soviet Union against either nation (Adolf Hitler broke the terms of the pact when he signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact in August, 1939).
- November 25 - Abraham Lincoln Brigade sails from New York City on its way to Spanish Civil War
- November 30 - In London, the Crystal Palace is destroyed in a fire (it had been built for the 1851 Great Exhibition).
- December 3 Radio station WQXR is officially founded
- December 10-11 - Edward VIII of the United Kingdom abdicates
- December 11 - Abdication of King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom leads to accession of King George VI of the United Kingdom.
- December 12 - George VI of the United Kingdom accedes to the throne.
- December 12-26 - Men of two of his generals kidnap Chiang Kai-Shek in Xi'an (Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng do it to force him to negotiate a deal with the communists)
- December 30 - The United Auto Workers union stages its first sit-down strike.

Unknown Dates


- Inge Lehmann argues that the Earth's molten interior has a solid core.
- The Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Turkish Straits is signed.
- YMCA Youth and Government program founded in Albany, New York
- Oswald Mosley leads an Anti-Jewish march through London's East End, where it meets with opposition
- Start of the Great Arab Revolt in the British mandate of Palestine (lasting until 1939)
- Jean Piaget (1896-1980) publishes 'La naissance de l'intelligence chez l'enfant'.
- Mordecai Ham begins radio ministry.

Births

January-February


- January 2 - Roger Miller, American singer (d. 1992)
- January 3 - Georgina Spelvin, film actress
- January 10 - Stephen Ambrose, American historian (d. 2002)
- January 10 - Robert Wilson, American physicist and radio astronomer, Nobel Prize laureate
- January 21 - Koji Hashimoto, Japanese film director (d. 2005)
- January 22 - Ong Teng Cheong, President of Singapore (d. 2002)
- January 22 - Alan J. Heeger, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
- January 22 - Joseph Wambaugh, American author
- January 23 - Jerry Kramer, American football player
- January 27 - Troy Donahue, American actor (d. 2001)
- January 27 - Samuel C. C. Ting, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
- January 28 - Alan Alda, American actor
- January 28 - Ismail Kadare, Albanian writer
- February 1 - Azie Taylor Morton, U.S. Treasurer (d. 2003)
- February 11 - Burt Reynolds, American actor
- February 14 - Andrew Prine, American actor
- February 17 - Jim Brown, American football player
- February 20 - Larry Hovis, American actor (d. 2003)
- February 21 - Barbara Jordan, American politician (d. 1996)
- February 22 - J. Michael Bishop, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- February 24 - Lance Reventlow, English playboy, entrepreneur, and race car driver (d. 1972)
- February 29 - Henri Richard, Canadian hockey player

March-April


- March 4 - Jim Clark, Scottish race car driver (d. 1968)
- March 5 - Canaan Banana, first President of Zimbabwe (d. 2003)
- March 5 - Dean Stockwell, American actor
- March 6 - Marion Barry Jr., Mayor of Washington, DC
- March 7 - Loren Acton, astronaut
- March 9 - Tom Sestak, American football player (d. 1987)
- March 11 - Rev. Ralph Abernathy, American civil rights leader (d. 1990)
- March 11 - Antonin Scalia, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
- March 17 - Ladislav Kupkovic, Slovak composer
- March 18 - Frederik Willem de Klerk, President of South Africa, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
- March 19 - Ursula Andress, Swiss actress
- March 20 - Lee "Scratch" Perry, Jamaican musician
- March 24 - David Suzuki, Canadian environmentalist
- March 28 - Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian author and politician
- March 31 - Marge Piercy, American novelist
- April 10 - John Madden, American football coach and sportscaster
- April 14 - Kenneth Mars, American actor
- April 22 - Glen Campbell, American musician
- April 23 - Roy Orbison, American singer (d. 1988)
- April 29 - Zubin Mehta, Indian conductor

May-August


- May 2 - Engelbert Humperdinck, British singer
- May 9 - Albert Finney, English actor
- May 9 - Glenda Jackson, English actress and politician
- May 12 - Frank Stella, American painter
- May 14 - Aline Chainé, First Lady of Canada
- May 14 - Bobby Darin, American singer (d. 1973)
- May 14 - Waheeda Rehman, Indian actress
- May 15 - Anna Maria Alberghetti, Italian-born actress
- May 15 - Paul Zindel, American novelist and playwright (d. 2003)
- May 16 - Karl Lehmann, German theologian
- May 17 - Dennis Hopper, American actor and director
- May 22 - M. Scott Peck, American psychiatrist and writer (d. 2005)
- May 28 - Betty Shabazz, American civil rights leader
- May 30 - Keir Dullea, American actor
- June 4 - Nutan, Indian actress
- June 8 - James Darren, American actor and singer
- June 8 - Kenneth G. Wilson, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
- June 22 - Kris Kristofferson, American singer, songwriter, and actor
- June 23 - Costas Simitis, Prime Minister of Greece
- June 26 - Robert Maclennan, British politician
- June 28 - Cathy Carr, American singer (d. 1988)
- June 28 - Chuck Howley, American football player
- June 29 - Harmon Killebrew, baseball player
- July 5 - James Mirrlees, Scottish economist, Nobel Prize laureate
- July 6 - Dave Allen, Irish comedian (d. 2005)
- July 23 - Don Drysdale, baseball player (d. 1993)
- July 28 - Garfield Sobers, West Indian cricketer
- August 1 - Yves St. Laurent, Algerian-born French fashion designer
- August 4 - Assia Djebar, Algerian writer and filmmaker
- August 20 - Hideki Shirakawa, Japanese chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
- August 21 - Wilt Chamberlain, American basketball player(d. 1999)
- August 29 - Inga Artamonova, Russian speed skater (d. 1966)

September-December


- September 2 - Andrew Grove, Hungarian-born businessman
- September 7 - Buddy Holly, American singer (d. 1959)
- September 14 - Walter Koenig, American actor
- September 14 - Ferid Murad, American physician and pharmacologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- September 24 - Jim Henson, American puppeteer, filmmaker, and television producer (d. 1990)
- October 3 - Steve Reich, American composer
- October 7 - Charles Dutoit, Swiss conductor
- October 16 - Andrei Chikatilo, Russian serial killer (d. 1994)
- October 23 - Barry Sinclair, New Zealand cricket captains
- October 31 - Michael Landon, American actor (d. 1991)
- November 12 - Mills Lane, American boxing referee
- November 19 - Yuan T. Lee, Taiwanese-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
- November 20 - Don DeLillo, American author
- November 21 - Victor Chang, Australian heart surgeon
- December 11 - Taku Yamasaki, Japanese politician
- December 25 - Princess Alexandra of Kent
- December 29 - Mary Tyler Moore, American actress
- December 29 - Ray Nitschke, American football player (d. 1998)

Deaths


- January 16 - Albert Fish, American serial killer (executed) (b. 1890)
- January 18 - Rudyard Kipling, British writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1865)
- January 20 - King George V of the United Kingdom (b. 1865)
- February 4 - Wilhelm Gustloff, German leader of the Swiss Nazi Party (b. 1895)
- February 19 - Billy Mitchell, U.S. general and military aviation pioneer (b. 1879)
- February 26 - Saito Makoto, Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1858)
- February 27 - Ivan Pavlov, Russian psychologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1849)
- February 28 - Charles Nicolle, French bacteriologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1866)
- March 16 - Marguerite Durand, French journalist and feminist leader (b. 1864)
- March 21 - Alexander Glazunov, Russian composer (b. 1865)
- April 3 - Bruno Hauptmann, German killer of Charles Lindbergh Jr. (b. 1899)
- April 8 - Robert Bárány, Austrian physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1876)
- April 30 - Alfred Edward Housman, English poet (b. 1859)
- June 11 - Robert E. Howard, American author (suicide

United States

:For alternative meanings, see the disambiguation page for US, USA, United States, or American. The United States of America is a federal democratic republic situated primarily in central North America. It comprises 50 states and one federal district, and has several territories. It is also referred to, with varying formality, as the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., the States, or simply and most commonly, America. The official founding date of the United States is July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress—representing thirteen British colonies—adopted the Declaration of Independence. However, the structure of the government was profoundly changed in 1788, when the states replaced the Articles of Confederation with the United States Constitution. The date on which each of the fifty states adopted the Constitution is typically regarded as the date that state "entered the Union" (became part of the United States). Since the mid-20th century, following World War II, the United States has emerged as a dominant global influence in economic, political, military, scientific, technological, and cultural affairs.

Geography and climate

The United States shares land borders with Canada (to the north) and Mexico (to the south), and territorial water boundaries with Canada, Russia, the Bahamas, and numerous smaller nations. It is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea, in the west; the Arctic Ocean, in the northernmost areas; and the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea, in the eastern and southeastern areas. Forty-eight of the states are in the single region between Canada and Mexico; this group is referred to, with varying precision and formality, as the continental or contiguous United States, sometimes abbreviated CONUS, and as the Lower 48. Alaska, which is not included in the term contiguous United States, is at the northwestern end of North America, separated from the Lower 48 by Canada. The archipelago of Hawaii is in the Pacific Ocean. The capital city, Washington, District of Columbia is a federal district located on land donated by the state of Maryland. (Virginia also donated land, but it was returned in 1847.) The United States also has overseas territories with varying levels of independence and organization. When inland water is included in the total area, only Russia and Canada are larger than the United States; if inland water is excluded, China ranks third and the U.S. ranks fourth. The United States' total area is 3,718,711 square miles (9,631,418 km²), of which land makes up 3,537,438 square miles (9,161,923 km²) and water makes up 181,273 square miles (469,495 km²). The United States' landscape is one of the most varied among those of the world's nations: among its many features are temperate forestland and rolling hills, on the east coast; mangrove, in Florida; the Great Plains, in the center of the country; the Mississippi–Missouri river system; the Great Lakes, four of the five of which are shared with Canada; the Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains; deserts and temperate coastal zones, west of the Rocky Mountains; and temperate rain forests, in the Pacific northwest. Alaska's tundra, and the volcanic, tropical islands of Hawaii add to the geographic diversity. Hawaii The climate varies along with the landscape, from tropical in Hawaii and southern Florida to tundra in Alaska and atop some of the highest mountains. Most of the North and East experience a temperate continental climate, with warm summers and cold winters. Most of the South experiences a subtropical humid climate with mild winters and long, hot, humid summers. Rainfall decreases markedly from the humid forests of the Eastern Great Plains to the semi-arid shortgrass prairies on the high plains abutting the Rocky Mountains. Arid deserts, including the Mojave, extend through the lowlands and valleys of the southwest, from westernmost Texas to California and northward throughout much of Nevada. Some parts of California have a Mediterranean climate. Rainforests line the windward mountains of the Pacific Northwest from Oregon to Alaska.

History

American history started with the migration of people from Asia across the Bering land bridge approximately 12,000 years ago following large animals that they hunted into the Americas. These Native Americans left evidence of their presence in petroglyphs, burial mounds, and other artifacts. It is estimated that 2-9 million people lived in the territory now occupied by the U.S. before European contact, and the subsequent introduction of foreign diseases such as small pox that greatly diminished the native populations. Some advanced societies were the Anasazi of the southwest, who inhabited Chaco Canyon, and the Woodland Indians, who built Cahokia, located near present-day St Louis, a city with a population of 40,000 at its peak in AD 1200. Vikings first visited North America around 1000, but did not settle permanently. Following the discovery voyages of Christopher Columbus around 1492, other Europeans began to explore and settle there. During the 1500s and 1600s, the Spanish settled parts of the present-day Southwest and Florida, founding St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 and Santa Fe (in what is now New Mexico) in 1607. The first successful English settlement was at Jamestown, Virginia, also in 1607. Within the next two decades, several Dutch settlements, including New Amsterdam (the predecessor to New York City), were established in what are now the states of New York and New Jersey. In 1637, Sweden established a colony at Fort Christina (in what is now Delaware), but lost the settlement to the Dutch in 1655. This was followed by extensive British settlement of the east coast. The British colonists remained relatively undisturbed by their home country until after the French and Indian War, when France ceded Canada and the Great Lakes region to Britain. Britain then imposed taxes on the 13 colonies, widely regarded by the colonists as unfair because they were denied representation in the British Parliament. Tensions between Britain and the colonists increased, and the thirteen colonies eventually rebelled against British rule. British Parliament, George Washington (1789-1797).]] In 1776, the 13 colonies split from Great Britain and formed the United States, the world's first constitutional and democratic federal republic, after their Declaration of Independence of that year, and the Revolutionary War (1775 to 1783). The original political structure was a confederation in 1777, ratified in 1781 as the Articles of Confederation. After long debate, this was supplanted by the Constitution in 1789, forming a more centralized federal government. Prior to all these was the Albany Congress in 1754, in which a union was first seriously proposed. From early colonial times, there was a shortage of labor, which encouraged unfree labor, particularly indentured servitude and slavery. In the mid-19th century, a major division occurred in the United States over the issue of states' rights and the expansion of slavery. The northern states had become opposed to slavery, while the southern states saw it as necessary for the continued success of southern agriculture and wanted it expanded to the territories. Several federal laws were passed in an attempt to settle the dispute, including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. The dispute reached a crisis in 1861, when seven southern states seceded1 from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America, leading to the Civil War. Soon after the war began, four more southern states seceded. During the war, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, mandating the freedom of all slaves in states in rebellion, though full emancipation did not take place until after the end of the war in 1865, the dissolution of the Confederacy, and the Thirteenth Amendment took effect. The Civil War effectively ended the question of a state's right to secede, and is widely accepted as a major turning point after which the federal government became more powerful than state governments. Thirteenth Amendment). The title of the painting, from a 1726 poem by Bishop Berkeley, was a phrase often quoted in the era of Manifest Destiny, expressing a widely held belief that civilization had steadily moved westward throughout history. [http://americanart.si.edu/t2go/1lw/1931.6.1.html (more)] ]] During the 19th century, many new states were added to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the continent. Manifest Destiny was a philosophy that encouraged westward expansion in the United States. As the population of the Eastern states grew and as a steady increase of immigrants entered the country, settlers moved steadily westward across North America. In the process, the U.S. displaced most American Indian nations. This displacement of American Indians continues to be a matter of contention in the U.S. with many tribes attempting to assert their original claims to various lands. In some areas American Indian populations were reduced by foreign diseases contracted through contact with European settlers, and US settlers acquired those emptied lands. In other instances American Indians were removed from their traditional lands by force. Though some would say the U.S. was not a colonial power until the Spanish-American War when it acquired Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, the dominion exercised over land in North America the United States claimed is essentially colonial. The Philippines became independent in 1946. During this period, the nation also became an industrial power. This continued into the 20th century, which has been termed "the American Century" because of the nation's overriding influence on the world. The US became a center for innovation and technological development; major technologies that America either developed or was greatly involved in improving include the telephone, television, computer, the Internet, nuclear weapons, nuclear power, aviation, and aeronautics. In addition to the Civil War, another major traumatic experience for the nation was the Great Depression (1929 to 1939). The nation has also taken part in several major foreign wars, including World War I and World War II (in both of which the US later joined the Allies). During the Cold War, the US was a major player in the Korean War and Vietnam War, and, along with the Soviet Union, was considered one of the world's two "superpowers". With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US emerged as the world's leading economic and military power. Beginning in the 1990s, the United States became very involved in police actions and peacekeeping, including actions in Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia and Liberia, and the first Persian Gulf War driving Iraq out of Kuwait. After attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the United States and other allied nations found themselves involved in what has come to be called the "War on Terrorism," which has primarily encompassed military actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Government

Iraq of the United States.]]

Republic and suffrage

The United States is an example of a constitutional republic, with a government composed of and operating through a set of limited powers imposed by its design and enumerated in the United States Constitution. Specifically, the nation operates as a presidential democracy. There are three levels of government: federal, state, and local. Officials of each of these levels are either elected by eligible voters via secret ballot or appointed by other elected officials. Americans enjoy almost universal suffrage from the age of 18 regardless of race, sex, or wealth. There are some limits, however: felons are disenfranchised and in some states former felons are likewise. Furthermore, the national representation of territories and the federal district of Washington, DC in Congress is limited: residents of the District of Columbia are subject to federal laws and federal taxes but their only Congressional representative is a non-voting delegate.

Federal government

The federal government is the national government, comprising the Legislative Branch (led by Congress), the Executive Branch (led by the President), and the Judicial Branch (led by the Supreme Court). These three branches were designed to apply checks and balances on each other. The Constitution limits the powers of the federal government to defense, foreign affairs, the issuing and management of currency, the management of trade and relations between the states, and the protection of human rights. In addition to these explicitly stated powers, the federal government—with the assistance of the Supreme Court—has gradually extended these powers into such areas as welfare and education, on the basis of the "necessary and proper" clause of the Constitution.

The Congress

necessary and proper The Congress of the United States is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives consists of 435 members, each of whom represents a congressional district and serves for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population; in contrast, each state has two Senators, regardless of population. There are a total of 100 senators, who serve six-year terms. The powers of Congress are limited to those enumerated in the Constitution; all other powers are reserved to the states and the people. The Constitution also includes the necessary-and-proper clause, which grants Congress the power to "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers."

The President

necessary-and-proper clause At the top level of the executive branch is the President of the United States. The President and Vice-President are elected as 'running mates' for four-year terms by the Electoral College, for which each state, as well as the District of Columbia, is allocated a number of seats based on its representation (or ostensible representation, in the case of D. C.) in both houses of Congress (see U.S. Electoral College). The relationship between the President and the Congress reflects that between the English monarchy and parliament at the time of the framing of the United States Constitution. Congress can legislate to constrain the President's executive power, even with respect to his or her command of the armed forces; however, this power is used only very rarely—a notable example was the constraint placed on President Richard Nixon's strategy of bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam War. The President cannot directly propose legislation, and must rely on supporters in Congress to promote his or her legislative agenda. The President's signature is required to turn congressional bills into law; in this respect, the President has the power—only occasionally used—to veto congressional legislation. Congress can override a presidential veto with a two-thirds majority vote in both houses. The ultimate power of Congress over the President is that of impeachment or removal of the elected President through a House vote, a Senate trial, and a Senate vote. The threat of using this power has had major political ramifications in the cases of Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. The President makes around 2,000 executive appointments, including members of the Cabinet and ambassadors, which must be approved by the Senate; the President can also issue executive orders and pardons, and has other Constitutional duties, among them the requirement to give a State of the Union address to Congress once a year. Although the President's constitutional role may appear to be constrained, in practice, the office carries enormous prestige that typically eclipses the power of Congress: the Presidency has justifiably been referred to as 'the most powerful office in the world'. The Vice President is first in the line of succession, and is the President of the Senate ex officio, with the ability to cast a tie-breaking vote. The members of the President's Cabinet are responsible for administering the various departments of state, including the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, and the State Department. These departments and department heads have considerable regulatory and political power, and it is they who are responsible for executing federal laws and regulations. George W. Bush is the 43rd President, currently serving his second term.

The Courts

George W. Bush The highest court is the Supreme Court, which consists of nine justices. The court deals with federal and constitutional matters, and can declare legislation made at any level of the government as unconstitutional, nullifying the law and creating precedent for future law and decisions. Below the Supreme Court are the courts of appeals, and below them in turn are the district courts, which are the general trial courts for federal law. Separate from, but not entirely independent of, this federal court system are the individual court systems of each state, each dealing with its own laws and having its own judicial rules and procedures. A case may be appealed from a state court to a federal court only if there is a federal question; the supreme court of each state is the final authority on the interpretation of that state's laws and constitution.

State and local governments

supreme court of each state. Note that Alaska and Hawaii are shown at different scales, and that the Aleutian Islands and the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are omitted from this map.]] The state governments have the greatest influence over people's daily lives. Each state has its own written constitution and has different laws. There are sometimes great differences in law and procedure between the different states, concerning issues such as property, crime, health, and education. The highest elected official of each state is the Governor. Each state also has an elected legislature (bicameral in every state except Nebraska), whose members represent the different parts of the state. Of note is the New Hampshire legislature, which is the third-largest legislative body in the English-speaking world, and has one representative for every 3,000 people. Each state maintains its own judiciary, with the lowest level typically being county courts, and culminating in each state supreme court, though sometimes named differently. In some states, supreme and lower court justices are elected by the people; in others, they are appointed, as they are in the federal system. The institutions that are responsible for local government are typically town, city, or county boards, making laws that affect their particular area. These laws concern issues such as traffic, the sale of alcohol, and keeping animals. The highest elected official of a town or city is usually the mayor. In New England, towns operate directly democratically, and in some states, such as Rhode Island and Connecticut, counties have little or no power, existing only as geographic distinctions. In other areas, county governments have more power, such as to collect taxes and maintain law enforcement agencies.

Political divisions

With the Declaration of Independence, the thirteen colonies proclaimed themselves to be nation states modeled after the European states of the time. Although considered as sovereigns initially, under the Articles of Confederation of 1781 they entered into a "Perpetual Union" and created a fully sovereign federal state, delegating certain powers to the national Congress, including the right to engage in diplomatic relations and to levy war, while each retaining their individual sovereignty, freedom and independence. But the national government proved too ineffective, so the administrative structure of the government was vastly reorganized with the United States Constitution of 1789. Under this new union, the continued status of the individual states as sovereign nation states fell into dispute in 1861, as several states attempted to secede from the union; in response, then-President Abraham Lincoln claimed that such secession was illegal, and the result was the American Civil War. Since the Union victory in 1865, the independent status of the individual states has not been broached again by any state, and the status of each state within the union has been deemed by mainstream officials and academics to be settled as being subordinate to the union as a whole. In subsequent years, the number of states grew steadily due to western expansion, the purchase of lands by the national government from other nation states, and the subdivision of existing states, resulting in the current total of 50. The states are generally divided into smaller administrative regions, including counties, cities and townships. The United States–Canadian border is the longest undefended political boundary in the world. The U.S. is divided into three distinct sections:
- the "continental United States," also known as "the Lower 48" and more accurately termed the conterminous, coterminous or contiguous United States
- Alaska, which is physically connected only to Canada
- the archipelago of Hawaii, in the central Pacific Ocean. The United States also holds several other territories, districts, and possessions, notably the federal district of the District of Columbia, which is the nation's capital, and several overseas insular areas, the most significant of which are American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands. The Palmyra Atoll is the United States' only incorporated territory; it is unorganized and uninhabited. The United States Navy has held a base at a portion of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 1898. The United States government possesses a lease to this land, which only mutual agreement or United States abandonment of the area can terminate. The present Cuban government of Fidel Castro disputes this arrangement, claiming Cuba was not truly sovereign at the time of the signing. The United States argues this point moot because Cuba apparently ratified the lease post-revolution, and with full sovereignty, when it cashed one rent check in accordance with the disputed treaty.

Foreign relations and military

sovereign] The immense military and economic dominance of the United States has made foreign relations an especially important topic in its politics, with considerable concern about the image of the United States throughout the world. Reactions towards the United States by other nationalities are often strong, ranging from uninhibited admiration and mimicking of all things American to anti-Americanism. US foreign policy has swung about several times over the course of its history between the poles of strict isolationism and imperialism and everywhere in between. Three of the nation's four military branches are administered by the Department of Defense: the Army, the Navy (including the Marine Corps), and the Air Force. The Coast Guard falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime, but is placed under the Department of the Navy in time of war. The combined United States armed forces consist of 1.4 million active duty personnel, along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and the National Guard. Military conscription ended in 1973. The United States Armed forces are considered to be the most powerful military (of any sort) on Earth and their force projection capabilities are unrivaled by any other nation. The 2005 defense budget amounted to $401.7 billion, which is an increase of 4% over 2004 and of 35% since 2001. Over 50% of that number is spent in research & development. (For comparison, in 2004 the European Union (considered as the second-largest military force) had a combined total of 1.6 million troops, and a defense budget of €160 billion, with less than 10% of that being spent on R&D.)

Largest cities

The United States has dozens of major cities, including 11 of the 55 global cities of all types — with three "alpha" global cities: New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The figures expressed below are for populations within city limits. A different ranking is evident when considering U.S. metro area populations, although the top three would be unchanged. Note that some cities not listed (such as Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.) are still considered important on the basis of other factors and issues, including culture, economics, heritage, and politics. The twenty largest cities, based on the United States Census Bureau's 2004 estimates, are as follows:

Economy

The United States has the largest single-country economy in the world, with a per-capita gross domestic product of $40,100. In this market-oriented economy, private individuals and business firms make most of the decisions, and the federal and state governments buy needed goods and services predominantly in the private marketplace. gross domestic product The largest industry of the U.S. is now service, which employs roughly three quarters of the U.S. work force. The United States has many natural resources, including oil and gas, metals, and such minerals as gold, soda ash, and zinc. In agriculture, the U.S. is a top producer of, among other crops, corn, soy beans, and wheat; the United States is a net exporter of food. The U.S. manufacturing sector produces goods such as, cars, airplanes, steel, and electronics, among many others. Economic activity varies greatly from one part of the country to another, with many industries being largely dependent on a certain city or region; New York City is the center of the American financial, publishing, broadcasting, and advertising industries; Silicon Valley is the country’s primary location for high-technology companies, while Los Angeles is the most important center for film production. The Midwest is known for its reliance on manufacturing and heavy industry, with Detroit, Michigan, serving as the center of the American automotive industry; the Great Plains are known as the "breadbasket" of America for their tremendous agricultural output; the intermountain region serves as a mining hub and natural gas resource; the Pacific Northwest for fish and timber, while Texas is largely associated with the oil industry; the Southeast is a major hub for both medical research and the textiles industry. Several countries continue to link their currency to the dollar or even use it as a currency (such as Ecuador), although this practice has subsided since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. Many markets are also quoted in dollars, such as those of oil and gold. The dollar is also the predominant reserve currency in the world, and more than half of global reserves are in dollars. The largest trading partner of the United States is Canada (19%), followed by China (12%), Mexico (11%), and Japan (8%). More than 50% of total trade is with these four countries. In 2003, the United States was ranked as the third most visited tourist destination in the world; its 40,400,000 visitors ranked behind France's 75,000,000 and Spain's 52,500,000. Labor unions have existed since the 19th century, and grew large and powerful from the 1930s to the 1950s. See Labor history of the United States. Since 1970 they have shrunk in the private sector and now cover fewer than 8% of the workers. However union membership has grown rapidly in the public sector, especially among teachers, nurses, police, postal workers, and municipal clerks. There have been few strikes in recent years. The United States' imports exceed exports by 80%, leading to an annual trade deficit of $700,000,000,000, or 6% of gross domestic product. It is the largest debtor nation in the world, with total gross foreign debt of over $13,000,000,000,000 (2005 estimate); and it absorbs more than 50% of global savings annually. Since the 1980s, the U.S. has increased the use of neoliberal economic policies that reduce government intervention and reduce the size of the welfare state, backing away from the more interventionist Keynsian economic policies that had been in favor since the Great Depression. As a result, the United States provides fewer government-delivered social welfare services than most industrialized nations, choosing instead to keep its tax burden lower and relying more heavily on the free market and private charities. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages higher than the national level ($5.15 per-hour), including the highest, Washington State at $7.35. Twenty-six states are the same as the federal level; two--Ohio and Kansas--are below; and six do not have state laws. America's wealth is relatively highly concentrated. The average C.E.O. earns 500 times the typical amount a worker grosses, this is up from 25 times in the late 1970s. In terms of wealth the top 1% of Americans own 40% of all assets and 50.1% of the country's income goes to the top twenty percent of households. Average wages for the majority of employees have been largely stagnating since the 1970s. America's poverty line defined as a family of four earning less than $19,157 is at 12.7% of the general population. Approximately one out of every five children in the United States grows up below the official poverty line. Among racial groups; African Americans have the lowest median income while Asians had the highest. Regionally, the southern states had the lowest median incomes while the West Coast and New England had the highest. The current Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan remarked that the U.S.’s growing income inequality since the 1970s is, "not the type of thing which a democratic society - a capitalist democratic society - can really accept without addressing."[http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0614/p01s03-usec.html?s=itm] However, Greenspan also noted, "...you can look at the system and say it's got a lot of problems to it, and sure it does. It always has. But you can't get around the fact that this is the most extraordinarily successful economy in history."

Transportation

Alan Greenspan ]] Because the United States is a relatively young nation, most of the development of U.S. cities has taken place since the invention of the automobile. To link its vast territory, the United States built a network of high-capacity, high-speed highways, of which the most important element is the Interstate Highway system, commissioned in the 1950s by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and modeled after the German Autobahn. The United States also has a transcontinental rail system, which is used for moving freight across the lower forty-eight states. Passenger rail service is provided by Amtrak, which serves forty-six of the lower forty-eight states. Many cities in the United States have extensive mass-transit systems. New York City operates one of the world's largest and most heavily used subway systems. The regional rail and bus networks that extend into Long Island, New Jersey, Upstate New York, and Connecticut are among the most heavily used in the world. Air travel is often preferred for destinations over 300 miles (500 kilometers) away. In terms of passengers, seventeen of the world's thirty busiest airports in 2004 were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; in terms of cargo, in the same year, twelve of the world's thirty busiest airports were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Memphis International Airport. There are several major seaports in the United States; the three busiest are the Port of Los Angeles, California; the Port of Long Beach, California; and the Port of New York and New Jersey. Others include Houston, Texas; Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Miami, Florida; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Seattle, Washington; plus, outside the contiguous forty-eight states, Anchorage, Alaska, and Honolulu, Hawaii.

Society

Demographics

Hawaii The mean center of the U.S. population continues to drift farther west and south. The fastest growing region is the western United States followed by the southern portion. According to Census 2000, the states that saw the greatest increases from 1990 were: Nevada (66.3%), Arizona (40%), Colorado (30.6%), Utah (29.6%), Idaho (28.5%), Georgia (26.4%), Florida (23.5%), Texas (22.8%), North Carolina (21.4%), and Washington (21.1%). [http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t2/tab03.pdf]

Ethnicity and race

:Main article: Racial demographics of the United States The United States is a very racially diverse country. According to the 2000 census, it has 31 ethnic groups with at least one million members each, and numerous others represented in smaller amounts. The majority of Americans descend from white European immigrants who arrived at the establishment of the first colonies (most after Reconstruction). This majority--69.1% in 2000--decreases each year, and is expected to become a plurality within a few decades. The most frequently stated European ancestries are German (15.2%), Irish (10.8%), English (8.7%), Italian (5.6%) and Scandinavian (3.7%). Many immigrants also hail from Slavic countries such as Poland and Russia. Other significant immigrant populations came from eastern and southern Europe and French Canada. Russia Hispanics from Mexico and South and Central America are the largest minority group in the country, comprising 12.5% of the population (2000 census). People of Mexican descent made up 7.3% of the population in the 2000 census, and this proportion is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. About 12.3% (2000 census) of the American people are African Americans (Blacks). African Americans are spread throughout the country, but their presence is largest in the South. Asian Americans--including Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders--are a third significant minority (3.7% of the population in 2000). Most Asian Americans are concentrated on the West Coast and Hawaii. The largest groups are immigrants or descendants of emigrants from the Philippines, China, India, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan. Indigenous peoples in the United States, such as American Indians and Inuit, make up 0.9% of the population (2000 census). About 35% live on Indian reservations.

Religion

Polls estimate that just under 80 percent of Americans are Christians of various denominations. The other 20 percent comprises other religions such as Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, other various faiths, and those without a specific religion. The United States is noteworthy among developed nations for its relatively high level of religiosity. According to a 2004 Gallup poll, about 44% of Americans attend a religious service at least once a week. However, this rate is not uniform across the country; attendance is more common in the Bible Belt—composed largely of Southern and Midwestern states—than in the Northeast and West Coast. In the Southern states, Baptists are the largest group, followed by Methodists; Roman Catholics are dominant in the Northeast and in large parts of the Midwest due to their being settled by descendants of Catholic immigrants from Europe (such as Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Poland) or other parts of North America (mainly Quebec and Puerto Rico). The rest of the country for the most part has a complex mixture of various Christian groups.

Education

West Coast's home at Monticello and the University of Virginia (library building shown above, and designed by Jefferson), the only collegiate campus on the list. Both sites are located in Charlottesville, Virginia.]] In the United States, education is a state, not federal, responsibility, and the laws and standards vary considerably. However, the federal government, through the Department of Education, is involved with funding of some programs and exerts some influence through its ability to control funding. In most states, all students must attend mandatory schooling starting with kindergarten, which children normally enter at age 5, and following through 12th grade, which is normally completed at age 18

Astronaut

An astronaut, cosmonaut, spationaut or taikonaut (taikongren, 太空人) is a person who travels into space, or who makes a career of doing so. The criteria for determining who has achieved human spaceflight vary (see edge of space). In the United States, people who travel above an altitude of 50 miles (approximately 80 kilometers) are designated as astronauts. The FAI defines spaceflight as over 100 km (approximately 62 miles). As of October 12, 2005, a total of 448 humans have reached space according to the U.S. definition, 442 people qualify under the FAI definition, while 438 people have reached Earth orbit or beyond. These individuals have spent over 28,000 crew-days (or a cumulative total of 76.7 years) in space including over 100 crew-days of spacewalks. A person who has traveled in space is said to hold astronaut wings. Astronauts from at least 34 countries have gone into space.

International variations

By convention, a space traveller employed by the Russian Aviation and Space Agency or its Soviet predecessor is called a cosmonaut. "Cosmonaut" is an anglicisation of the Russian word космонавт (kosmonavt), which in turn derives from the Greek words kosmos, meaning "universe" and nautes, "sailor". In the USA, a space traveller is called an astronaut. The term derives from the Greek words ástron ("star") and nautes, ("sailor"). For the most part, "cosmonaut" and "astronaut" are synonyms in all languages, and the usage of choice is often dictated by political reasons. However in the United States, the term "astronaut" is typically applied to the individual as soon as training begins, while in Russia, an individual is not labeled a cosmonaut until successful space flight. The first known use of the term was by Neil R. Jones in his short story The Death's Head Meteor in 1930. On March 14, 1995 astronaut Norman Thagard became the first American to ride to space on-board a Russian launch vehicle, arguably becoming the first American cosmonaut in the process. European (outside of the UK) space travellers are sometimes, especially in French-speaking countries, called spationauts (a hybrid word formed from the Latin spatium, "space", and Greek nautes, "sailor"). Apart from the Soviet Union, Europe has not yet produced manned spacecraft, but has sent men and women into space in cooperation with Russia and to a lesser extent with the United States of America. Taikonaut is sometimes used in English for astronauts from China by Western news media. The term was coined in May 1998 by Chiew Lee Yih (赵里昱) from Malaysia, who used it first in newsgroups. Almost simultaneously, Chen Lan coined it for use in the Western media based on the term tàikōng (太空), Chinese for "space". In Chinese itself, however, a single term yǔháng yuán (宇航員, "universe navigator") has long been used for astronauts. The closest term using taikong is a colloquialism tàikōng rén (太空人, "space human"), which refers to people who have actually been in space. Official English texts issued by the Chinese government use astronaut ().

Space milestones

colloquialism The first attempt ever in human history to use rocket for a spaceflight was done in the 16th century by a Chinese Ming dynasty official, a skilled stargazer named Wan Hu.[http://edition.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/09/30/china.wanhu/index.html] The first cosmonaut was Yuri Gagarin, who was launched into space on April 12 1961 aboard Vostok 1. The first woman cosmonaut was Valentina Tereshkova, launched into space in June 1963 aboard Vostok 6. Alan Shepard became the first American in space in May 1961. Vladimir Remek became the first non-Soviet European in space in 1978 on a Russian Soyuz rocket. On July 23 1980 Pham Tuan of Vietnam became the first Asian in space when he flew aboard Soyuz 37. In June 1985 Shannon Lucid became the first Chinese born person in space. On October 15 2003 Yang Liwei became China's first astronaut on the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft. The first mission to orbit the moon was Apollo 8 which included William Anders - who was born in Hong Kong making him the first Asian-born astronaut in 1968. The youngest person to fly in space is